Links

Thursday, December 3, 2015

The world is constantly changing.
The Earth is slowly losing oxygen.
The sun is slowly dying.
Time is running out.
Our existence is limited in time and space.
In this urgency of existence we meet
We are born, and we will die one day
I want to return
I want to return to the past where the people reside
in places I've been
But the world is changing
And past is only in memory
They are gone. The places are different.
I do not know these people.
I do not know these places.
Most places are not preserved for historical significance or emotional attachment
They change completely within a matter of months or years
because money is the driving force of the world
The playground is there, but the kids are different
and I am different. I am no longer a kid.
I am too big for the swings and the slide
The school is there, but the students and faculty have changed
It's not the same school of the past
I cannot be a part of it as I was in the past.
I cannot join them and become friends with them
I cannot be in the same place again
I cannot meet the same people again
Because the world has changed
The places have changed
And the people have changed
Imagine I am in a large dark structure
with each floors containing different memories
The people and places that form the substance of such memories
lighten up the dark structure with emotional attachment
I reach out for them but the floors are constantly shifting
By the time I can touch them the places have already changed
I only know I am headed in the right direction
because my paintings come out alright
Oh how much I miss my friends who no longer talk
How much changes have been in my life
and the world we reside in

Thursday, June 18, 2015

I believe I have an innate gift to discern truth in midst of chaos. This act of observing truth in midst of random and chaotic array of information is a tradition that goes back many centuries in the history of art, and in particular, western art. This pursuit of truth and seeking of the light can manifest in any number of forms and styles of art, such as experimental and abstract or traditional representational art. The truth that we artists speak of can include harmony, balance, and dynamic composition of colors, light, and forms. The truth can also be of historical or political characteristics that speak to the past and current issues. If experimentation is the highest achievement for a scientist, the pursuit of truth in midst of chaos is the noblest goal and attainment for not only artists, but every persons living. It is precisely because the pursuit of truth is every so often against one's own self interests or dogmatic ideology that it is so difficult, challenging and confusing to achieve. There are so many clever ways to distort reality through language, and because humans rely on language as the ultimate determiner of truth, the result of such investigation via language is accepted as truth, even when it is wrong. With light, however, it is entirely a different world. Because light is a direct representation of reality, we artists do not fear confronting it to arrive at the truth of whatever we are trying to depict. Even in experimental, non-representational, and abstract art, truth prevails as the experimental idea expressed through a visual style and visual language. Here, there is no complication in sequence of logic and depiction to arrive at a final representation of truth as there would be if people were to attempt to deliver it through verbal language. The truth manifests in art directly and efficiently without a middle man called language or words to allow any distortion whatsoever.

Through painting, I insist on the destruction of the persistent process of manipulating the truth. Through painting I am making a stand for the truth as a universal principle, and a right of all observers and actors. Through painting I am trying to deliver the whole picture, not just a part of the picture, and the whole truth, not a part of the truth.

The truth that I speak of is not absolute but a relative curvature of effectiveness and relevance. In other words, truth is absolute in that it is relative; and truth is relative in that it is absolute. I sometimes symbolize truth in the shape of an arc.

In my paintings, I am an observer and a messenger. I try to deliver the truth by capturing the essence of the subject or the emotion that I am trying to depict. This is the act of avoiding distortion by reducing what I observe down to its essence. I choose beauty as the overall theme because it is something that I am naturally drawn to. It did not have to fight me to win me over. Beauty is a truth that is innately peaceful.

In these times when truth is contested and fought over, the assertion that we the people are beautiful, and therefore the universe is beautiful, is something that I will devote my art towards.